Forget climate change, forget AI stealing jobs, and forget the businesses that thrive only on PowerPoint slides—the real apocalypse is unfolding under our noses, or more precisely, under our empty bedsheets.
Marriage rates are tanking, baby cries are fading into archival sounds, and humanity’s collective dream has shifted from “settle down and build a future” to “travel solo, post reels, and die with great lighting.”
And while we’ve been busy blaming social media, dating apps, and commitment-phobic millennials, the real silent assassin has been standing right there—holding a mic, making us laugh to death. Ladies and gentlemen, a round of applause for comedy on OTT and social media platforms.
The Population Crisis Is No Joke: Across the world, governments are in a state of panic. Japan is offering dating subsidies, Italy is offering “baby bonuses”, and India is counting on the Kama Sutra to boost its birth rates. But people are refusing to pair up, let alone reproduce.
You might think the reasons are economic stress, career obsession, or climate anxiety. Wrong. The real culprit is the global conspiracy of stand-up specials and OTT sitcoms that have turned love, marriage, and babies into punchlines with better comic timing.
Every time you open WhatsApp or scroll through an OTT app, there’s another special where some comedian in a hoodie declares that marriage is “a slow death in instalments,” parenting is “like living with unpaid interns who can’t spell.” Romance is “just an algorithmic illusion.” The audience laughs, nods, and quietly vows to delete Connects and re-download Tinder.
Social Media—The PR Agency for Loneliness: Social media isn’t innocent either. It’s turned relationships into performance art. Weddings now look like drone-filmed Marvel crossovers. Proposals require choreographers. Honeymoons are content campaigns.
So, when a young couple sees the effort involved—location scouting, outfit coordination, and hashtag strategy—they realise it’s easier to stay single and filter their selfies. At least that solo trip to Bali or Thailand won’t demand a hashtag like #ForeverBeginsHere.
Pornography—Destroying Confidence, One Tab at a Time: Then there’s pornography, the unacknowledged co-conspirator. It’s done to sexual confidence what potholes do to Formula 1 cars.
Once upon a time, people entered marriage blissfully ignorant, their expectations shaped by Bollywood. Now, every 28-year-old feels they need the stamina of an athlete, the choreography of a Cirque du Soleil performer, and the physique of a mythological demigod. The result? Performance anxiety is so crippling that relationships feel like exams better skipped.
Divorce—The Starter Pack: Meanwhile, divorces are so common that they deserve their own unboxing videos. Every week brings a headline: “Celebrity couple calls it quits after 72 hours,” or “Influencer duo breaks up to focus on self-love and brand collaborations.”
It’s not that people don’t want marriage anymore—it’s just that they’ve seen too many sequels flop. If 60% of films failed at the box office, who would finance another one?
Marriage, once “till death do us part,” now feels like a limited-time subscription—renewable only if both parties survive brunch arguments.
OTT Platforms—Streaming the Extinction: OTT platforms, however, are the real villains hiding behind their algorithms. They’ve turned domestic life into a farce. Every sitcom portrays the husband as a lovable idiot, the wife as an exhausted cynic, and the kids as sarcastic freeloaders.
Watch enough of it, and you’ll start believing that raising a child is equivalent to voluntarily adopting chaos. Parenthood, once considered fulfilling, now appears to be unpaid labour performed under duress. Even romance, when it appears, comes preloaded with betrayal, burnout, or existential crisis. OTT doesn’t stream love stories anymore—it streams cautionary tales.
Me-ism—The New Religion: Today’s guiding philosophy is “self-care.” Which is fine—until “self-care” becomes “self-only.” We’ve replaced commitment with convenience, family with followers, and nurturing with networking.
Why have a child who might resent you when you can have a dog that worships you? Why build a home when you can build a personal brand? Why parent when you can podcast?
The result is a society that celebrates independence so fiercely that even biological continuity feels like an outdated social construct.
Comedy—The Ultimate Contraceptive: At the centre of it all sits comedy—mic in hand, smirking. It has made being single aspirational, marriage a tragicomedy, and parenting a horror show. Every laugh at a joke about nagging wives, clueless husbands, or sticky-fingered toddlers is another nail in the cradle. Sure, in real life, marriage can be tender, sex hilariously imperfect, and children occasionally joyful before they bankrupt you. But who wants to hear that when you can laugh at a 15-minute set about toddlers as terrorists?
If comedians switched gears and did sets titled “The Joy of Waking Up to the Same Person for 40 Years” or “How My Kid’s School Play Changed My Life,” birth rates would spike overnight. But no one buys tickets for optimism.
Laugh Now, Vanish Later: So yes, laugh while you can. Stream that new special. Forward that meme. Attend that open mic. But remember—every chuckle might just be one less baby born. Fifty years from now, when historians study the population collapse, they won’t blame inflation or feminism. They’ll be staring at terabytes of OTT stand-up clips—sweaty comedians under stage lights saying, “So, my wife says to me…”—and they’ll nod in grim understanding.
Comedy didn’t just kill the tension. It’s killing the future.
Sanjeev Kotnala is a brand and marketing consultant, writer, coach and mentor.
